


i’ll be home for christmas (if only in my dreams)

by Anonymous



Series: the things they carried [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Home for Christmas, Hydra (Marvel), Missions, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Sad Peter Parker, Tired Peter Parker, Tired Tony Stark, endgame isn’t a thing here but morgan still exists, let them rest, they both need a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:29:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: They promised their families that the endeavor would take five days, tops, allowing them to return a couple of days before the holiday. Really, Tony should have known that there would be some sort of catch.AKA Peter and Tony are on a mission and can’t make it home for Christmas.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: the things they carried [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584334
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Anonymous





	i’ll be home for christmas (if only in my dreams)

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! i don’t think there are any TWs that i need to put here but let me know if anything needs to be added :)

“I’m really sorry. I really wish that I could be there.”

Tony listened to Peter as he tried to explain to May that their mission was taking longer than anticipated. It was the kid’s sophomore year, and as soon as exams were over the two of them were shipped off to Ukraine to deal with some HYDRA operatives a SHIELD agent had reported. 

They promised their families that the endeavor would take five days, tops, allowing them to return a couple of days before the holiday. Really, Tony should have known that it was going to take longer, that there would be some sort of catch. If the situation could be handled so easily in such a short amount of time, SHIELD would most likely just send out some of their very capable agents to handle the threat.

Sadly, these HYDRA operatives weren’t as low profile as they thought. A few days of observing and gathering intel was enough to prove that the operatives in question were enhanced. 

This, of course, turned everything upside down and forced them to change their whole strategy. Should they gather information on the enhancements and how they were acquired first? Should they engage at all? Or should they wait until backup would be available? Would brute force even be enough to take them down? There were too many uncertainties to just run in there with guns blazing. So it was back to square one.

“I know,” Peter said, voice now softer and laced with sadness. “I know, May, just... I’m sorry. I can’t wait to see you, either.” 

The crack in the teenager’s voice made Tony want to yell. None of this was fair in the slightest. Tony could hear the sadness in Pepper’s voice and the confusion in Morgan’s when he spoke to them on the phone earlier. 

“I love you too,” Peter said, voice strained. “Bye.”

Tony watched as the boy hung up the burner phone with a sigh, hanging his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked older now, far older than he should. 

-

The days were long. Their progress was painfully slow, and all either of them wanted was to finish this mission and go home. At the beginning of the mission, Peter had been so excited at the chance to help with official Avengers business. Now, Tony could see that light going out as exhaustion creeped in. 

On Christmas Eve, Tony found himself guiding Peter as he snuck through the air ducts of the operatives’ base. Once he found their server room, the kid skillfully hacked into their systems and downloaded as much information as he could before someone found him. 

“I’ve almost got everything we n-“ The kid stopped abruptly, a gasp escaping his lips, before the feed Tony was watching erupted into chaos.

“Peter? Pete- Kid!”

Heart leaping into his throat, Tony took off towards the base without waiting for a response. It wasn’t much- a small abandoned apartment building with a security system. Tony was easily able to navigate to which room Peter was in and burst through the window, repulsers ready. 

When Tony got there, he found Peter engaged in a fight with four men. He was skillfully dodging bullets and getting in hits whenever he could. Tony blasted one of the men and while the other three were distracted, Peter disarmed them. Tony knocked one of them unconscious while Peter took on the other two, webbing them together. 

“They’re definitely not enhanced,” Peter said. 

“Web ‘em all up,” Tony replied, heading towards the door. “I’ll call for someone to take care of them, but for now we have to leave before their backup gets here.”

“Hey, wait,” Peter said, and Tony froze, worried. “Look at the time.” 

Tony looked at the time displayed in front of his eyes, which read 12:37am

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Stark,” the kid said. 

Tony smiled. “Merry Christmas.”

-

Back at the hotel, the two looked through the information that Peter downloaded onto the hard drive as the sun rose outside their window. There were statistics about the operatives’ height and weight, reports about their strength and healing factors and other enhancements. There were videos of HYDRA doing experiments, pushing the operatives to their limit to see just how far they could go, and Tony felt the kid tense as they watched. 

“Look at this,” Peter said, pointing to the screen. “‘Winter Soldier Project 2.0.1- Failed.’“ He paused. “Does- Does that mean...?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, wiping a hand down his face with a sigh. “They tried to make more after they lost Barnes.“

The rest of that morning was filled with thinking and planning and strategizing until Tony’s head started to hurt with the effort. 

“Look at this,” Peter said, pointing at one of the files. “It’s a file of the genetic makeup of each of them. Do you think we could use that to our advantage?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know,” the boy scratched his head. “Maybe... Maybe we could make a tranquilizer that would work on them.”

Tony’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a great idea.”

It took the whole day for the two to gather the materials they needed for their concoction. Benzodiazepines weren’t particularly easy to come across while staying under the radar, but a call in to SHIELD had someone delivering materials from Berlin that night. 

The next morning, the two decided to go patrol the area. Peter wore his stealth suit and Tony put on street clothes, hiding his nanotech arc reactor underneath a zip-up jacket. 

“You see anything suspicious, you tell me,” Tony said as he handed Peter a comm device, tucking his own into his ear. “Okay?” Peter nodded silently. “Hey,” Tony said, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and the kid looked up at him, allowing Tony to see the dark circles forming under his eyes. “I know you’re tired, but we’re almost done.”

“Yeah.”

So they were off on their separate ways, patrolling the streets of Kyiv. The place was crowded with people, making it difficult to decipher who was a threat and who wasn’t. Tony sat outside a cafe, newspaper in hand as he scanned the area. 

“How’s it looking, kid?”

“Nothing strange on my end,” Peter replied. “You?”

“Nothing over here, either,” Tony said, then immediately realized he had spoken too soon when he saw a large black van speeding down the street with too much purpose. Tony ran the plates through his glasses and used reconnaissance mode to look inside. “I take that back. There’s a black Mercedes van coming your way. Plates are stolen and it looks like our failed Winter Soldiers are inside.”

“I see it,” Peter replied. “I’m following it now.”

Tony stood and anxiously made his way towards the direction the van was going. “What do you see?”

“They’re going in the direction of the US Embassy,” Peter replied, uncertainty lacing his voice. “Should I stop them?”

“Keep tailing them. I’m on my way,” Tony said, tapping his arc reactor twice to allow his suit to encase his body. 

He was only seconds into his flight before Peter said in a panicked voice, “Mr. Stark, something‘s wrong.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, I just- I need to stop them. How close are you?”

“A minute away.” There were several seconds of silence before Tony heard a crash, both in his comm and in the open. “Peter?” There was no response and Tony cursed under his breath, flying even faster. 

By the time he got there, the kid was already in the thick of it. Just outside of the embassy, Peter was up against all four operatives, guns firing and fists flying. Tony landed in the middle of the chaos, immediately catching a fist that was being sent towards his head. He used a repulser to send the man flying backwards, landing on an empty car nearby. Tony turned to look at Peter, who had used his webs to disarm the remaining assets and was now dodging hits left and right. 

Tony sent tranquilizers into the operatives who were engaging with Peter. They didn’t fall unconscious right away, but faltered all the same, enough for the kid to send two webs into them, pinning them to the ground. He then engaged with another man just as the first one was recovering from being slammed into an automobile. He summoned the nanoparticles to form a taser and sent both of his opponents sprawling backwards.

“Web ‘em up, kid!”

Peter sprang into action and pinned down the remaining operatives, then stood back to admire his work. Police and military personnel were surrounding them, guns out.

“You guys can take it from here,” Tony said to one of them, handing them the vial of the remaining sedative.

-

It took another day before Tony and Peter were headed back to New York. They had to debrief the military personnel in Ukraine, then fly to DC and report back to SHIELD before they were finally aboard the Quinjet and headed for the tower. 

Peter slept through the entire ride, snoring softly. Tony tried his best to get some sleep, but he couldn’t get his brain to shut off. He couldn’t get over the fact that they missed Christmas. That Morgan had to open her presents without her dad there. He was hoping he’d get to see her reaction to some of the things he got her- like the chemistry set he got for her to play with with Peter, or the Legos. 

He knew that Peter was still upset that May had to spend the holiday alone. Holidays tend to be hard for the both of them, since the loss of Peter’s uncle, and Tony hated the thought of May alone in her apartment, missing her husband and nephew with no one there to comfort her. 

When they landed on the tower’s helipad, it was almost eleven in the evening on that twenty-seventh of December. They lugged their bags through the cold winter air and into the building, dragging their feet with exhaustion. When they got into the elevator, Peter sat on his suitcase while Tony ordered FRIDAY to take them to the penthouse. He could take Peter home in the morning. There was no way he would be able to keep his eyes open long enough to take the kid home now. 

The elevator opened in the penthouse and Peter and Tony stepped into the dark room, letting out a sigh of relief. God, it was so good to be home. 

Suddenly, the lights turned on, snapping Peter and Tony out of their half-asleep stupor.

“Welcome home!”

May, Happy, Rhodey, and Pepper were all standing around the room, and Tony barely had time to react before Morgan was crashing into his knees and wrapping her arms around his legs.

“Well what are you doing up,” he asked as he picked her up, giving her a kiss on the cheek. 

“Mama let me stay up so I could hug you before bed.” 

Tony could tell that she was tired as she buried her face in his shoulder. He was about to respond to her when he looked to his left and his eyes landed on the Christmas tree. The gifts looked untouched, and none of them seemed to have been opened. Shocked, Tony looked over at Pepper. 

“Why didn’t you guys open your gifts?”

“It was Morgan’s idea,” Pepper said. “She wanted to wait for you guys.”

As Tony hugged his wife and daughter, he looked over to where Peter was clutching onto May in a grip that looked almost painful. His face was buried in her neck and May was running a hand through his hair, smiling widely. Happy was next to them grinning as well. 

“She’s been here a lot since Peter’s been gone,” Rhodey said from behind Pepper. “She came for dinner on Christmas.”

Tony released a wet laugh, emotion bubbling in his chest. “Great. I was- I was worried.” 

When Tony realized that Morgan had fallen asleep in his arms, he brought her into her bedroom and tucked her in. Then he went back out to the living room. They all sat around on the couches by the tree, hot chocolate in hand as they talked about what happened while the two were away. Within minutes, Peter was snoozing with his head on Tony’s shoulder. 

Maybe they did make it home for Christmas after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think!!  
> 


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